Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	answer_n	england_n	rome_n	3,412	5	6.2753	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51000	Misericordiam volo, or, The pharisees lesson shewing the impiety and vnreasonableness of contending for outward formes and ceremonies, to the violation of obedience, charity, and the publick peace.	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.; Long, Thomas, 1621-1707. Character of a separatist, or, Sensuality the ground of separation.	1677 (1677)	Wing M2245; ESTC R33489	37,726	84

of the Nation in their solemn Assemblies and doubtless as St. Ambrose wrote to St. Augustine if they had known any thing better they would have practised that 3 ly It will very much impair the authority and reputation of Magistrates so to comply with the importune clamours of scrupulous persons as to alter or abrogate their laws and constitutions as oft as discontented or seduced persons shall demand it And though it be very uncertain that the craving party will be satisfied when they are indulged in all that they desire yet it is certain that others will be incouraged to make new supplications and so create perpetual disturbances And the gratifying of a few weaklings or male-contents may give just cause of offence to a greater and better party who are desirous to worship God in the beauty of holiness and are really grieved at the irreverence and disorders which are and have been too observable in the Meetings of dissenting parties 4 ly Hereby the Magistrate should tacitly confess himself guilty of all those accusations that have been charged upon him and his predecessors of imposing unlawful superstitious and Popish ceremonies and persecuting the godly and conscientious people that could not conform to them And 5 ly It would greatly defame those worthy Martyrs who not only thought fit to retain them and gave cogent arguments for the lawful use of them but sealed the established worship and discipline with their bloud not only in the Marian days but under the late Usurpation also 6 ly It is an unreasonable thing to demand that which they themselves would deny if they were in the Magistrates place for let me ask them whether they being well perswaded of their discipline and order viz. that it is agreeable to the Word of God to antiquity and reason would comply with the desires of dissenting parties to make such alterations as should from time to time be required by others contrary to their own judgments and consciences and to this we need no other answer than the practice of the Objectors when they were in Authority And who can doubt but that they who being subjects do assume to themselves a power of directing and prescribing to the Magistrate if they were in the Magistrates place would take it very ill to be directed by their Subjects 7 ly If the established ceremonies were removed others of a like nature would succeed as unscriptural and symbolical as they such as sitting at the Sacrament and lifting up the hands to Heaven it being impossible almost to perform divine service with any decency without such and seeing that for many centuries of the Primitive Church wherein other ceremonies have been complained of by Saint Augustine and others no man ever objected against the ceremonies which are used in our Church and which were by those famous Reformers and Martyrs retained in our Liturgy it is no argument of a meek or quiet spirit to make objections and cause divisions upon pretence of Superstition in the Liturgy and ceremonies and to expect that the Church to salve their reputation should betray her own and by abrogating her sanctions give the world more reason than yet hath been given to believe that the Church of England even from the first Reformation hath been in a dangerous error and the Factions that opposed her have had truth and justice on their side In the second Objection Papists and Sectaries joyntly say That other dissenters may as well justifie their separation from us on pretence of the Ceremonies retained by our Church as we can justifie our separation from the Church of Rome by reason of the Ceremonies injoyned by her To which I shall not need to make any other answer than a short appeal to the Consciences of all unprejudiced persons Whether the Church of England requiring the use of three Ceremonies declared by her self to be indifferent and acknowledged by her enemies not to be unlawful can be thought by any sober person to give as great and just a cause of Separation from her as all that load of Superstition in the Church of Rome of which St. Augustine complained in his days that the Jewish yoke was less heavy To require Prayers in an unknown Tongue and to Saints and Angels is doubtless more offensive than to use a solemn plain form of words taken either from the Scripture or the ancient Liturgies of the Church What is the Surplice Cross in Baptism and kneeling at the Sacrament for devotion if compared to their Adoration of the transubstantiated Host worshipping of Images invocation of Saints their doctrines of the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility of Purgatory and Indulgences besides the innumerable ceremonies daily practised by them And as the Sectaries will not condemn the Church of England for receding from these extreams so neither can the Romanists blame her for want of moderation in retaining both purity of Doctrine and decency of Worship and abhorring those other extreams of Sacriledge and profanation of holy things of Rebellion and Bloud-shed though under pretence of Religion wherewith both they and the Sectaries have defiled themselves It was the pious care of the Pilots of our Church to conduct their Successors between the two rocks of Superstition and Idolatry on one hand and irreverence and irreligion on the other in the same course in which I hope we all believe they themselves went to Heaven And the Governors of the Church have ever since taken caution of all its Ministers not to depart from the same either in their publick ministrations or doctrines so that the people need not doubt of their security in such good old ways wherein as the ancient Martyrs did they may even in the midst of outward troubles find peace in their Souls But as for those that give themselves up to the guidance of Unstable men who have degenerated not only from the moderation and charity of the ancient Nonconformists but even from their own principles and neither are what they lately were nor have given their followers any security that they will continue to be what now they are They must needs be like children tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive There are perhaps some weak persons among us whose Consciences are really offended at the use of our Ceremonies these we ought to regard so far that if it were in our power we should rather omit the use of the Ceremonies than give them offence But as we are forbid to give any offence to private persons so much more to the Church of God 1 Cor. 10.32 by our disobedience And whereas those that have real scruples of Conscience will be diligent to enquire and ready to receive satisfaction from their more learned Brethren it cannot be presumed that there are many such among us who have the arguments and examples of the first Reformers and Martyrs the fence and Harmony of the Reformed Churches abroad

Worship upon which there grew a mortal hatred between them so as that there was no commerce between them they would not salute one another Nec monstrare vias eadem nisi Sacra colenti and it was accounted all one to be a Samaritan and to have a Devil So when once Men swerve from the center and basis of charity there is no consistency but Men fall first to vain jangling and that increaseth to more ungodliness for where bitter envying or as the original word is zeal is there is confusion and every evil thing Behold saith St. James how great a matter a little fire kindleth if Men snatch a Coal from the Altar it is blown up and down by popular breath until it be raised into a flame and hath this property at least of the fire of the Sanctuary that the busie Levites will not permit it to go out I know it will be troublesome to others for it is a terror to my self to recount what cataracts and inundations of blood our Church-divisions that at first as the prophets Cloud were but as a hand-breadth have rained down upon the whole Land I shall give it you therefore in a Foreign instance namely of the Donatists in Africa who because Cecilian their Bishop had admitted some to his Communion whom they accused for Traditors first withdrew from the Church which as they pretended ought to consist of such only as were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy and without blemish and because they had read in the Canticles that Christ caused his Flock to rest sub meridie they concluded that their Party in the South of Africa was that Flock and hereupon they are very industrious to gather Congregations and pick up one of a Family and two or three of a Village which as Optatus observes were generally of the weaker sort Aut exivit Vxor resedit Maritus c. The Wife is withdrawn from her Husband the Son or Daugh●er from their Parents And my * Optatus Author sets down the Method which those Seducers used Cai Sei or Caia Scia bonus homo sed traditor libera animam tuam Thou good Man or good Woman thou art among Idolaters and Superstitious persons thou hast good affections but they are not rightly placed come out of Babylon and deliver thy Soul When they had thus increased their Party they built Basilicas non necessarias more Churches than were necessary and their Sermons were generally Satyrs against the Catholicks and though they were frequently confuted in private disputations and condemned by many Synods at home and several Councils abroad and divers Edicts of the Emperors yet never would they acquiesce or be reconciled but vexed the Churches of Africa for more than a Hundred Years increasing their Numbers and subdividing into Factions as the Primianists and Maximianists the Rogatians and Callidians Luciferians and Circumcellians and all of them Donatists and the Circumcellians were a Generation of Zealots so fierce and implacable that Domitian himself did not use more cruelty in shedding Christians bloud nor Julian who was in Rempublicam Christianam ingeniose nequam could ever contrive more mischievous Instruments to destroy Christianity withall than these Donatists were and therefore he countenanced them against the Catholicks And when at last their grievances and the grounds of the Schisme came to be inquired into in the Conference of Carthage they could object nothing against the Catholicks but what here the Pharisees did against Christ Why eateth your Master with Publicans and Sinners And can any Christian Spirit think that this Plea for a Levitical Ceremony will justifie such barbarous cruelties and bloody Sacrifices before him who hath said I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice For let it be considered that we live in a Church which is established on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone a Church wherein nothing is forbidden which the Word of God commands nor any thing commanded which that forbids a Church whose Constitutions are truly Ancient and Apostolical for which it is envied by her Adversaries though blamed by those that should be her Friends In a word a Church wherein we may be as holy devout and charitable as flesh and bloud will permit us This Church is protected by a Gracious King setled on the Throne of his Fathers by many miracles of Providence ready to gratifie the just desires of all good Men. And what sufficient reason can be given to disturb the peace of such a Church or to disobey the commands of such a King for the preservation of peace and unity under whom all things are lawful except libertas pereundi a licence to undo our selves and others That there are some such imperfections in the Church as discontented Persons may quarrel at is no strange thing and if causless and frivolous objections may be a ground for Separation Tanta est imperitiae morositas ut vel in rebus probatissimis habeat semper quid reprehendat Cal. there can never be a firm peace in any Church seeing that ignorance and interest and malice will still prevail in the hearts of some Men but that such things may be tolerated and submitted to rather than to destroy the foundations of peace and unity and rent the Body of Christ is the judgment of all sober Christians Our Saviour did not withdraw himself and his Disciples from the Jewish Synagogues because there was a High-Priest and the Scribes and Pharisees sate in Moses Chair A tolerable Sore is better than a dangerous remedy Mr. Hooker Nor did the Apostle perswade the Christians to forsake the Church of Corinth wherein were many profane Persons and great abuses but he disswaded them from their divisions which had given occasion to those scandals And if the Church in imitation of her Master do retain some sinful persons in her Communion in hope to reform them it is no charitable course to seduce her Disciples as here the Pharisees did Why eateth your Master with Publicans and Sinners If the Church did impose such Sacrifices as the Church of Rome doth for the Living and the Dead a few Pence at the Pope's shrine for Sins past present and to come if it did require that daily Mock-sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Mass of which they themselves can have no great esteem seeing they order it to give place to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Worship of the Cross on a certain day set apart for that end on which saith Darand Rationale l. 6. c. 77. Horâ nonâ convenit ad adorandam crucem vacare they must be wholly intent upon the Worshipping of the Cross as if that were indeed the Altar that did Sanctifie the Sacrifice or if they did impose such gaudy and numerous Ceremonies as should quite hide and obscure the substance of Worship and Devotion that it might be said of the Church as the Poet says of his gaudy Girl Pars minima